Sensuous poetry, stark prose and sumptuous cuisine: books inspired by southern Spain

Richard E. Grant's literary odyssey takes him to Andalucia in southern Spain, where he discovers a landscape shaped by turbulent history and the steady Mediterranean sunshine.

Reading key passages from authors whose work has been inspired by the landscape, he gains a unique view of the country that has been captured in some of the most unforgettable writing of the past century.

Richard’s journey starts in the ancient city of Granada. Inspired by the writing of poet and playwright Federico Garcia Lorca, one of Spain’s most celebrated figures, he finds out about the city’s rich Moorish heritage, its rich Romani culture and the tragic part it played in the Spanish Civil War.

Sketches of Spain brings together several of Lorca's most evocative descriptions of the country from the early years of the 20th Century. In lyrical prose, he describes the sights, sounds and smells of a population carving a simple life full of both poverty and beauty.

Richard's quest to learn more about Lorca leads him to explore the Spanish concept of ‘duende’, a form of heightened emotion. He hears Lorca’s poetry sung by one of Spain’s most celebrated flamenco singers.

Richard also explores the house where Lorca’s family lived during the poet’s final years, and learns how his eventful life was cut tragically short when he was killed in Granada by a fascist firing squad in August 1936.

As he travels, Richard reads from Lorca's poems, which have now been collected in several different editions.

Novelist Victoria Hislop was inspired by Lorca’s life and writing, and also by a love of flamenco, when she wrote her novel The Return.

While reading it, Richard learns about Spain’s policy of ‘forgetting’, which meant that in the country there was little or no conversation about the brutalities of the war. In 2007 a "Historical Memory" law was passed, enabling Spain to start the process of coming to terms with the legacy of Franco's dictatorship and the civil war that preceded it. (This process was strengthened in July 2021 by a new Democratic Memory bill aimed at honouring the victims).

In the western Alpujarras, one of Spain’s wildest areas at the foothills of the Sierra Nevada mountains, Richard travels down bumpy rural roads to the spot where 30 years ago former Genesis drummer Chris Stewart bought a dilapidated farm called El Valero.

Chris shows Richard around the study where he wrote Driving Over Lemons, the first in the bestselling series of books chronicling his experience of relocating to rural Spain and, over lunch, they discuss the attractions of living in such a remote place.

Like Chris Stewart, the great American writer Ernest Hemingway was attracted to the romance of Spain when in 1923 he and his wife visited the fiesta in Pamplona, the events of which became central to his first novel The Sun Also Rises.

Hemingway returned to the country regularly, and was a key voice reporting on the Civil War for the North American Newspaper Alliance.

Richard heads to the spectacular mountain town of Ronda. Hemingway wrote that ‘this is where you should go if you ever go to Spain on a honeymoon’. He also wrote that this is where you should come to see your first bullfight. Richard discovers the author's 1932 non-fiction book Death in the Afternoon, and explores Hemingway’s fascination with bullfighting, which was controversial even at the time he was writing.

For Whom the Bell Tolls is Hemingway's unforgettable depiction of the struggles during the Spanish Civil War.

Richard visits the El Tajo gorge, thought to have inspired a famous description of a massacre in Hemingway's novel.

In the Eastern Alpujarras, Richard goes foraging for seasonal produce with Emma Illsley, co-author of Las Chimeneas: Recipes and Stories from an Alpujarran Village. He discovers that the Alpujarras is home to some of Spain’s finest food, largely thanks to the availability of ingredients like almonds and figs established in Spain by the Moors.

Richard also finds out about the acequias, the unique and ancient Moorish watering systems still used on a community basis by the local farmers and growers. They channel and distribute melt and spring water from the Sierra Nevada mountains, lending the Alpujarras its verdant character and underpinning the rich ecosystem in the valleys.

He also samples a traditional local dish prepared by two local cooks from recipes handed down through the ages.

Driving south to the Costa Tropical, known for a micro-climate that once made it a prosperous sugar-growing area, Richard heads to the seaside resort of Almuñécar.

The town was the final stop on Laurie Lee’s epic walk across Spain, described in his much-loved travelogue As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning.

Richard tries his hand at busking on a mouth organ in an attempt to emulate Lee, who earned money for everyday living by playing the violin. He also learns about Lee’s time here in the days leading up to the Civil War, and discovers the enduring importance of his account of the town’s fortunes.

West of Almuñécar on the Costa del Sol, Richard visits the resort of Marbella accompanied by J G Ballard’s Cocaine Nights. Ballard loved the coast but watched it grow from a series of fishing villages to ‘a linear beach city entirely devoted to leisure’.

In his provocative thriller, Balllard examines the potential dangers of gated communities cut off from reality. Playing tennis, Richard learns about the radical solution to ‘boredom’ offered by tennis coach Bobby Crawford, Ballard’s fictional creation.